


You Are My Truest Feeling Yet

by foundfamilyvevo



Series: straight for your heart (wolfpack au) [8]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Comforting Phone Calls is My Genre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 15:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18705082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundfamilyvevo/pseuds/foundfamilyvevo
Summary: Home felt very different, now, than it once had. And it felt very far away.Or, Zayn's on a work trip and he phones Liam.





	You Are My Truest Feeling Yet

**Author's Note:**

> my quiet heart whispered ziam to me in the dead of night (aka at 9pm) and now here we are. this is set, like, at a time, who knows. eva and i agreed that chronology is nonsense.  
> title from sunshine riptide by fall out boy

_ It’s only been a week _ , Zayn reminded himself miserably, dragging his sorry ass through the door of the only acceptable coffee shop in the area and blearily settling into the queue. It was cold outside, the colour of the sky foreboding more snow, though it was February. He felt grumpy and tired from days of work. He would say he was trying to be positive, only he wasn’t. He had tired of being positive on the third day. Every time he thought of home, his stomach hurt.

Home was still another five days away.

For so long,  _ home _ had meant  _ alone _ . The beautiful, glowing light at the end of Zayn’s tunnel was always somewhere he could sit by himself, uninterrupted by the outside world, with enough space to project what was inside of his head to somewhere outside of it too. He used to draw on his walls as a child, which drove his parents crazy. He just had too much in his brain, he thought, to keep it all cooped up in there.

Home, now, though. It was Harry with flour on his nose. The night before Zayn left, when Niall had curled up to his side on the couch and dozed off on his shoulder, warm and bright. Louis, standing by the sink, drying the dishes, gazing out the window into the garden, lost in thought. Home was even starting to be the way Liam’s hair looked, very first thing in the morning, though Zayn was still getting to know Liam, still settling in to this new part of his soul.

Home felt very different, now, than it once had. And it felt very far away.

The door behind him opened, and closed. The little bell jingled, offensively cheerful to Zayn’s melancholy. Whoever had just come in smelled so strongly of cigarettes.

Cigarettes were another thing that still felt like home, despite Zayn’s best efforts. He had tried to replace the nicotine with caffeine, since it was at least better for his lungs, and so far it was… almost working. The smell still got to him. Sometimes in the breaks at work he would go outside with the other designers on their smoke break and stand around, just to let the secondhand smoke take a couple of extra years of his life. He still said no when they offered him one, though, so he felt like it was an excusable indulgence.

He got his coffee, turned, and walked back to the hotel, without stopping to buy smokes and without lying down on the sidewalk to be buried by the feather-light snowfall.

 

Hotels sucked. The bed smelled weird and the walls were a colour that made him feel resentful. There was only a shower, no bath like at home. He flipped through the TV without any real direction or desire. He checked the clock for the fourth time in twenty minutes.

He was waiting for Louis to get home, so he could call him. He knew that he’d still be at work right now. And then he would go to pick up Niall. And it was killing Zayn.

He needed so badly to talk to one of his pack. If he couldn’t have their touch, their smell, the sight of them - he at least needed to hear someone’s voice.

If he called Harry, they could talk, but Harry hated phone calls. Zayn knew that. When Harry missed Zayn, he found it easier to go cold turkey, missing him fully and only speaking to him when he got home. The fragment made Harry too sore. Zayn knew that.

Of course, he could always call Liam.

That idea made Zayn pause.

 

Liam hadn’t been theirs for very long, was all. Long enough that it no longer felt odd to have him at the table during meal times, for sure. Long enough that he or Louis could handle Liam, now, when he was upset - Liam wasn’t afraid of Louis any more (thank goodness). It wasn’t that Zayn didn’t desperately, desperately miss Liam. Indeed he did, so badly that even thinking about Liam made his chest twist the way it normally did right before he shifted forms.

(That was the other thing Zayn hated about these trips, resisting shifting for so long. His human arms and legs and fingers started to feel on the fritz, after this long).

He could call Liam.

A few issues surfaced, and he sorted through them one at a time. First, he didn’t want Liam to feel any pressure to console or comfort Zayn from so far away, for Liam to feel a special responsibility, or like he could make a mistake. Third, he didn’t want to make it harder for Liam, the way the phone calls made it harder for Harry. Liam had had such bad anxiety last time Zayn had been gone.

Finally, he wasn’t sure he was ready. To be vulnerable like that, to Liam. Perhaps it would make Liam feel better, but it also made Zayn grit his teeth, squint his eyes, trying to imagine admitting to Liam,  _ I’m homesick _ , when he was the one meant to be looking after Liam and not the other way around.

Puffing up his cheeks and running through his hand stretches ( _ “So many artists get carpel tunnel, Zayn, _ ” he could hear Harry’s voice in his head), he weighed his options. Despite all his rationale, the ache in his chest got deeper, and deeper, and finally, he succumbed to it, fishing his phone from his bag and dialling Liam’s number.

It rung three, maybe four times before there was an answer.

“Zayn?”

The ache stabbed him, washed over him, consumed him. Zayn felt like crying. Liam’s voice was like water on a burn and salt in the wound all at once. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Hey, Liam,” he said, quiet. Hoarse. “Just thought I’d - call. How’re you doing?”

“Oh,” said Liam. Sweet. Unsure. Zayn closed his eyes, imagined Liam’s face, his messy curls everywhere, his wide eyes. “I - yeah. Not bad. Not as bad as the last time you left.”

There was some self-deprecation in his tone, a little sardonic tinge to his words, Liam’s way of coping with embarrassment. Zayn remembered his calls with Louis about it, about how Liam wasn’t sleeping, about how he was back like he was the day Zayn found him. “Well, that’s good,” Zayn murmured. “You’ve been sleeping?”

“Yeah. Six or seven hours. Gardening in the morning, with Niall.” There was a pause. “So. Um. How’s work?”

Zayn propped the phone on his shoulder and stretched his hands again.  _ Carpal tunnel. _ It wasn’t unimaginable. His wrists were sore and clicked whenever he moved them. His coworkers, as much as he normally enjoyed their company, were starting to drive him loopy. “It’s not bad,” he answered. “The project’s really coming together. I think they’re going to be really happy with it.”

The project, a huge mural for one wall of a museum, really was starting to look good. The only thing that made this job worth it was how dearly Zayn loved the work itself. When he put his headphones in and had his paints in hand, nothing else in the whole world mattered.

Or, almost nothing.

“If we’re on schedule,” Zayn added, “I’ll be home by Friday night.”

Liam exhaled, loud and long enough that Zayn could hear it over the phone. He knew exactly how Liam felt.   
“Friday,” Liam echoed. “That’s. I mean, yeah, okay. We’ll see you Friday.”

When Zayn had left, it was only meant to be a seven-day trip. Louis was angry that it was longer, but he wasn’t saying so. It was an argument they’d have once Zayn was home.

And poor Liam was trying so hard to sound like it didn’t bother him.

“I know.” Zayn chewed his lip. “I miss you,” he said, finally. “Miss all of you, a lot. I wish it was sooner, yeah?”

“I miss you too,” Liam admitted. Like he had done something wrong. Like a child who lost their hat. “I sometimes still feel… I mean. Anyway.”

“Feel what?” Zayn encouraged him. This, at least, he knew how to do. This.

All those years wasted, trying to force himself to be domineering, to be intense and angry, when this was what being an alpha was about that whole time.

“I feel like I’m not meant to be here, when you’re not,” Liam sighed. “I don’t know. I’m scared of stepping on toes. Feel like when you’re here you’ll pull me up.”

“I trust that Louis would too,” Zayn reminded him. “Know that you’ve got a place there, babe, not just ‘cause of me. I wasn’t the one who asked you…” Not to be part of their pack, not yet. “Well, asked you to stay. We all want you here.”

“Yeah.” Liam sounded relieved. Sometimes he just needed to hear it. Zayn understood why. “Yeah, okay. Feel better, hearing that.” He cleared his throat. “Why’d you call me? And not one of the others?”

“Because I missed you,” Zayn answered, honestly. Even if Liam hadn’t been the first on his list for a call, it didn’t mean Liam hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind all week. As he was painting, thinking about Liam’s hands, Liam’s laugh, the way Liam looked when he finally breathed out for long enough to look around him and be part of them the way Zayn knew he was meant to be. “I wanted to hear your voice, Liam.”

This was one of those times where Liam needed Zayn to be open. It was hard. It still felt, on the inside, like Zayn was clawing himself apart, in a way. But he would step up to the plate, where he was needed, because that was what it meant to be an alpha. “Being away from home hurts. I think of you, and the others, all the time. I’m lonely here. But talking to you helps. Would it be okay if I called you more?”

“ _ Yes, _ ” breathes Liam, almost gushy. “Yes, of course. Call me always. I mean, anytime. I mean, whenever, I just mean - yeah.”

Warmth bloomed behind Zayn’s sternum, a pattern unique to Liam. They all had something they did to him differently. “I get ya.”

“Louis is home,” Liam told him. Probably because he didn’t know what else to say, but he sounded comfortable, more at ease than when he picked up the phone, if still a little breathless.

“D’you mind if I have a chat to him?” Zayn asked.

Liam hurried to assure him that was fine, and Zayn promised he’d speak to Liam the next night. Liam said, “It’s a date,” before correcting himself, “I mean, not like  _ that, _ sorry, anyway, here’s Louis-”

 

Friday still felt forever away. But Liam felt closer than he had before. Louis started chattering about his day, instantly, the exact way he would if Zayn had been home himself, and Niall and Harry call hello in the background. They all felt closer. It would do for now.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and for caring about wolfpack, yall make my heart sing still after all this time


End file.
